About Me

my name is kate, and i'm a new england expatriate living in DC by way of chicago. i work in development for a non-profit, and i spend my spare time fighting the patriarchy and reading things. oh all right, i watch "project runway" too.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

disturbing.

i talked to SisterCat today, and she asked me to talk to her about my post yesterday, because she thought it was disturbing. it's funny, because i hadn't thought about it as "disturbing" per se, but when i think about it, i can see from where that choice of adjective on her part is coming.

because really, it is a "disturbing" realization to have. i was literally and figuratively disturbed by the notion that i might not like myself. but as i said to her today, in a way, i'm glad to have had that mental disturbance happen. epiphanies, by their nature, tend to be catalysts, and i am hoping that this is no exception. i'm almost relieved to have been able to crystallize all the hazy, nebulous feelings that i've been having over the last few months into something identifiable - that i've been able to pinpoint the problem. and now that i've done that, i can start to begin to back into all the reasons why i don't like myself, and try to start remedying them.

i have some ideas, and i have some news that goes along with those ideas. i really don't mean to leave you hanging with that, but i want to give it more attention here than i can at the moment. so, more soon.

2 comments:

Years ago, I came to the same realization. I realized that my frustration and low-grade depression was rooted in a sense that I was living as a deliberately impotent fraud. I realized that it was my own character trait of passivity that I loathed because it left me so vulnerable so often -- but it took me a long time to figure that out. And while I'm not a shill for the psychologists, I can report that therapy REALLY helped.

Like hugo, I have benefitted--and continue to even though I'm not longer in it--from therapy.

I know all about self-loathing, though I think in your case, like you wrote it's maybe the kind of destructive turn you anorexic make you have a drinking problem and date creeps kind of self-loathing I've experienced in the past, but more of a it's time to get my arse in gear and start living life the way I really want to kind.

I hope the allusions in this post are all to good and exciting things, and I can't wait to hear what they are.